


Folly

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:05:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: He wakes up at just past three AM on a rainy evening to feel her soft weight on the bed next to him.  She pushes against his shoulder, her head under his chin and he holds her there, close to his chest.  Her breathing is ragged, uneven – like she has been crying.  He doesn’t ask.  He knows the Portland job involved her mother.  He waits in silence like that, staring up at the high ceilings, for her to fall asleep.





	Folly

Selina takes a heist-job in Portland which keeps her away from Gotham for three and a half weeks. It’s an ugly and bitter thing when you are trying to breathe life into a relationship and the only contact you are allowed is reduced to snippets of phone calls from the odd public phone Selina can find.  
Bruce tells her, over and over. “Just come home, Selina. Come home.”

He wakes up at just past three AM on a rainy evening to feel her soft weight on the bed next to him. She pushes against his shoulder, her head under his chin and he holds her there, close to his chest. Her breathing is ragged, uneven – like she has been crying. He doesn’t ask. He knows the Portland job involved her mother. He waits in silence like that, staring up at the high ceilings, for her to fall asleep.

The next morning the bed is empty, but her jacket is on the floor, next to her boots, caked with dirt, and her jeans, torn and muddy – in a crumpled heap in the corner. He finds her in the shower, washing blood out of her hair, and he steps in behind her. She allows him to run his hands through her curls, smoothing out the snarls. For a moment, just a moment, she leans back against him – and he can feel the back of her neck against his chest. She is small, she stays so small, while he towers over her. “Are you staying?” He asks. But she doesn’t answer – she reaches for the water, turns it off and steps out of the shower, naked as the day. 

When he does see her again, it is at the Wayne Family Hospital benefit two days later and she is wearing the white gold necklace he gave her for Christmas the year before. He knows better now than to push her, so he allows her to come to him. He doesn’t ask about the dress – it is definitely not hers, not something she could afford. She steals a sip from his champagne and he watches her lips, full and soft, around the rim of the glass. “Mad at me?”  
He only raises his eyebrows in response, smiling at her quietly. “What would be the point?” And to that she smiles, wide and open. She seems more like herself again, but he doesn’t want to think about who she came here with, and who she will leave here with.

The calm doesn’t last because, admittedly, he lacks the patience to wait her out completely. He goes to her apartment and finds it a mess, mirrors smashed and the little cutlery she does own, in pieces on the floor. She saunters in an hour later, in a mood, and gives him an outright sigh when she sees him waiting on the only chair that is still in a sittable condition. “To what do I owe this particular pleasure?” He’s twenty four and she is twenty five, but most of the times, it feels as if she remained the petulant twelve year old he first met.  
“What happened here?” He asks, and it is none of his business, he knows, but he has to ask. She shrugs and tosses her jacket across the floor, sliding through the debris of broken glass. “Felt like renovating.” Her voice is light but electric. He knows that tone. She is looking for an argument and he just happens to be the nearest warm body. Inwardly he sighs, if he had only tried to hold out a day or two longer.  
Her eyes are cold, challenging “Why? Do you have any comments? Concerns?”  
Bruce, not in the mood for a Selina throw-down, keeps quiet.  
He suspects this is all about her mother, so that is the one subject he will steer miles around. “I wanted to see if you wanted to get some dinner. Alfred is visiting friends out of town so…”  
“Not hungry.”  
But her eyes remain on him. Her claws are out. She is just waiting for him to say the one thing she can lash at.  
“A drink then?”  
It must be his tone, or the way that he tried to keep it light – but it is enough to break the stare. She huffs and turns away from him, pulling off her gloves and tossing them against the wall with two light thuds.  
And he reaches the end of his specific tether.  
He gets up, and she watches him over her shoulder as he opens the door.  
“Let me know when you’re in a better mood, Selina.”  
As he closes the door he can hear something smash against it – hurled from across the room.

That night she crawls into his bed again. He doesn’t hear her come in, he doesn’t hear her undress. He just feels her skin as she slides up against him, traces her fingers through his hair. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks, B.” He lifts her face to his and opens his mouth to hers. It is slow at first and then desperate as she remembers herself, as she remembers her walls and defences. He breathes into her neck, whispers against her ear “Just stay, Selina, stay with me…just stay.”  
It ends the way that it always ends, wild and bordering on something just on the wrong side of rough. She pulls his hair and scratches his hips as he increases his pace, crowds her, shoves her down. “Please stay, stay.” 

She doesn’t stay. He doesn’t have to open his eyes the next morning to know that she is not there next to him. The pillow is on the floor where she dropped it when she got up. There are no piles of clothes, she got dressed and got out. He feels the spot where her body lay curled away from him just a few hours before. Cold. The ache, the dull ache, that begins every day without her, stabs at him just a little harder.


End file.
